OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 449 



The developement of the black colour in the individual 

 does not accord with the notion of its being produced by 

 external causes. " Negro children/' says Dr. Winter- 

 bottom, " are nearly as fair as Europeans at birth, and do 

 not acquire their colour until several days have elapsed. 

 The eyes of the new-born Negro children are also of a light 

 colour, and preserve somewhat of a bluish tinge for several 

 days after birth *." 



Camper had an opportunity of observing the change in 

 a Negro child born at Amsterdam. It was at first reddish, 

 nearly like European children : " on the third day, the or- 

 gans of generation, the folds of skin round the nails, and the 

 areolae of the breasts, were quite black : the blackness ex- 

 tended over the whole body on the fifth and sixth days ; and 

 the boy, who was born in a close chamber in the winter, and 

 well wrapped up, according to the custom of the country, 

 in swaddling-clothes, acquired the native colour of his race 

 over the whole body, excepting the palms and soles, which 

 are always paler, and almost white, in working Negroes f." 



On the other hand, a black state of the skin is sometimes 

 partially produced in individuals of the white races. In 

 the fairest of women, towards the end of pregnancy, spots of 

 a more or less deep black colour have been often observed ; 

 they gradually disappear after parturition. " The dark co- 

 lour of the skin," says White, "in some particular parts 

 of the body, is not confined to either the torrid or frigid 

 zones : for in England the nipple, the areola round the 

 nipple, the pudenda, and the verge of the anus, are of a 

 dark brown, and sometimes as black as in the Samoiede 

 women. It is to be rejnarked, that the colour of these parts 

 grows darker in women at the full period of gestation. One 

 morning, I examined the breasts of twenty women in the 

 Lying-in hospital in Manchester, and found that nineteen of 

 them had dark-coloured nipples ; some of them might be 

 said to be black ; and the areola round tiie nipple, from one 

 inch or two inches and a half in diameter, was of the same 



* /Ucount of the Native Africans, \. i. st. 1- p. 189. 

 ■)■ Kldnere Schriflen^ b. i. st. 1, p. 44. 

 G G 



